Amanda
by Vickychan
Summary: After becoming completely alive thanks to the dragonballs, Cell should be over the moon with his new family. He still has doubts, though. His daughter is the most precious thing in the world to him, but is he good for her? What does he have to pass on?


Cell awoke. He stared at the digital clock that grinned back from the bedside table. 4:00am. Was that all? Being... well.... 'alive' was the best word he could think to call it. What the dragonballs had made him, that was.  
Being alive... it made a lot of difference - and he'd only been half android before! He was amazed at how many differences there were between what he was now and what he had been before. There was the obvious difference - the one that Silvia had no complaints about, and nor did he for that matter. Then, there were the other differences. Sleeping and eating, mainly. He needed to eat a lot now. He often found himself hungry. Not because he needed a lot of food, but because he simply wasn't used to eating.   
Then there was sleeping. Before, when he was a bio-android, he didn't need to sleep. He got his energy from absorbing others or regenerating himself. But he couldn't do that anymore. He had to sleep. It wouldn't be a problem, but the 'living' weren't designed very well. If something bothered them - even the slightest thing - be it a noise, thought or the room temperature, they could wake up - even when they were still tired.

That was what had woken him up now. He was bothered by one of those little things, although he wasn't sure what it was. He had so many new emotions, new thoughts. He'd had a lot of these before, but there were still things that he wasn't used to. Tears, for one. He hadn't shed any yet, but he was finding himself much more sensitive than he used to be. He'd been capable of 'love' before, but no sadness. No use for it, really. But then, how would he benefit from love? Must have been the non-android part of him, as he assumed Gero hadn't wanted him to get a wife, have a daughter and let Goku bugger off and do whatever he wants. Well, let him. Cell didn't care anymore whether Goku became ruler of the universe or got run over. He had more important things to worry about.

Cell rolled over to look at the woman that lay beside him. He grinned. She may be the most glamorous thing in the universe during the day, but Silvia in the morning was a scary sight. She sometimes snored a little, too - and she was always a deep sleeper. Cell chuckled. It was fun teasing her about her snoring. She didn't do it that often, but she knew she snored occasionally, so even when she hadn't been snoring Cell said she had. And it drove her crazy! Nothing annoyed her more. It was so much fun!

As he gazed at her, Cell's smirk slowly faded into a peaceful smile. Ah, who was he kidding? He loved her. He knew it, she knew it, everybody knew it. And she loved him. They were both too proud of their reputations to admit that their relationship was based on more than just sex - with the occasional unplanned baby - but everyone knew it was more than that. And so did they.  
Well, just as long as nobody let on that they knew, Cell didn't care.

He leaned over, and kissed Silvia softly. She didn't move. Too busy sleeping. Cell chuckled, and pulled her close. Yeah, yeah. He was a big softy at heart when it came to her - and that was something only he knew. He was soft on Amanda, too. She was a real daddy's girl, and she was bound to take advantage of that when she was older. Cell looked at the clock again. 4:10am. Time to see Daddy's Girl. Well, while he was awake he might as well. He wasn't tired at all. He climbed out of bed, and silently left the room.

~~~~~

Cell entered Amanda's bedroom. The window was open a little, and it caused a bit of a draft. Cell closed it, and made his way over to Amanda's cot. He peered down at her. Cell grinned. She slept just like her mother. He picked her up. She didn't seem to notice. She shifted a little in his arms so that she was curled up against his warm chest, but that was all.

Cell sat down and hugged her gently. Funny, he'd never really seen himself has a family man. But to his amazement, he'd been over the moon when Silvia had told him she was pregnant - and so afraid when she'd said she wanted to abort. But he'd convinced her to keep the baby - but he had to take care of it. Change the baby, wash the baby, dress the baby, get up if the baby cried in the night (which she never did.) But he didn't mind. He would've insisted on an abortion at one time, but not now.   
Maybe it was because Amanda made him feel "alive". Having sex was one thing, but having a baby was another. When he'd become totally alive, he still never thought he'd ever be able to have children. So when Silvia became pregnant, he'd been amazed. And shocked. And happy. This little one, which he held safely in his arms, was proof that he really was like any other man. Well… kind of. He was still missing a few things. Things he couldn't wish for. A childhood…. Memories… Childhood memories. Parents. Even if he was adopted. It would still be better than nothing. Or maybe if he had been a child once. A baby… a teenager… anything. Anything that could provide him with any memories of some sort of childhood at all.

Cell looked at his daughter, and sighed. She looked so much like him. He smiled a little, but a bittersweet smile. She was too good for him. Much too good. He started to rock her gently a little, and began to sing softly to her.

_"I've held it all inward,  
Lord knows I've tried,  
It's an awful feeling in a country boy's life,  
To look in the mirror in total surprise,  
At the hair on your shoulders,  
And the age in your eyes."_

Yeah, if only. Yes, he would start to age now, but he should've aged before. From a baby, just like Amanda was now. Cell was not born, he was created. And what out of? He was a combination of the DNA of four different people from three different races. He was part of three different races or none at all, depending on how you looked at it. Sure, that was fine for now, but what would he tell Amanda when she was older? When she asked what race she was, what would he tell her? She was a zacrimanian with a few odd bits of namek, saiyans and changeling blood here and there. She was half zacrimanian and half... Cell.   
He continued to sing, staring off into his thoughts as he did so.

_"Amanda, light of my life,  
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife.  
Amanda, light of my life,  
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife."_

Well, maybe she didn't deserve him, but he was still her father. He had nothing to pass onto her except the removable armor wings on her back and the fixed helmet on her head. No photos… No stories…. No relatives. But even so, he was still happy that she was born a baby. He'd been worried at first. Worried that she'd be born the way he used to be. A bio-android.   
But she wasn't a bio-android. She was a normal female baby. A normal female baby that would grow up slowly into an adult like Cell should've done. She had no fixed appearance. Cell was only a few years old, but he looked Goku's age!   
Not this one, though. Amanda would look her age, and she would have a childhood. And Cell was determined to make that childhood as happy as it could be.

_"It's a measure of people who don't understand,  
The pleasures of life in a Hillbilly Band,  
I got my first guitar when I was fourteen,  
Now I've finally made forty and still wearing jeans."_

Same face, same armor. That was Cell's story. Yes, he would age now, and he could remove most of the green and black armor that had originally been fixed onto him, but he'd needed to dragonballs to do it. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. If the dragonballs didn't exist, he wouldn't have Amanda. But, he would've still met Silvia. Amanda's mother. The dragonballs had no part in that. And he liked to think that that small fact gave him the right to have his daughter in his arms like this now.

Cell smiled, and turned his head down to look at her. To his surprise, she was awake, and staring up at him with a twinkle in her eyes and a smile on her face. Cell smiled back, with the same twinkle in his eyes. He continued to sing, not taking his twinkling eyes off hers.

_"Amanda, light of my life,  
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife.  
Amanda, light of my life,  
Fate should have made you a gentleman's wife."_


End file.
